Book Review: Quintessence by David Walton

Pros: great world-building, entertaining

Cons: surprisingly swift resolution to numerous problems 

The Western Star returns to England from the edge of the world purportedly carrying treasures untold, but the hold is full of barrels of dirt, rocks, and seawater, and the crew has mysteriously died.  Stephen Parris, physic to the ailing King Edward VI, attempts to increase his knowledge of the human body by dissecting corpses, an act that would mean his execution if discovered.  The most recent body he examines, from The Western Star, is remarkably preserved and has some bizarre characteristics.  Christopher Sinclair is an alchemist, determined to find the elixir of life, and believes the tales of wealth the admiral of The Western Star told before he died.  He convinces the king to finance a second mission for the repaired ship and persuades Parris to accompany him on his voyage of discovery.

This book is set in a world very similar to our own where the Earth is, in fact, flat, and a mysterious substance called quintessence - the fifth element, the essence of life - is found in creatures that live close to the world’s edge.  The book, consequently, has a lot of fantastical creatures, starting with a beetle that can fly through walls and a manticore that can speak mind to mind using its tail as a connection port.  Learning about the different creatures and their miraculous properties was highly entertaining.

I’m currently learning about the history of science so it was a real pleasure to see Aristotelianism argued against atomism (not to be confused with the modern atomic theory). 

The book doesn’t pull any punches with regards to what life was like, either with England in its time of tribulation (with the succession), shipboard life, or the challenges of learning about a new land.  I especially appreciated that the Spanish inquisition was used accurately - as a way to wipe out heresy, not a series of witchcraft trials.  Again, the horror of the institution isn’t toned down at all, and the true targets, conversos (Jews and Muslims who professed conversion to Catholicism while retaining their beliefs in secret), are briefly shown in focus.  Witchcraft does come up, but in the contexts of body snatching and magic.

I really liked Parris and his inquisitiveness, as well as his daughter Catherine, and her desire to learn more about the natural world and avoid marriage for the time being.  I felt that Catherine grew over the course of the book, though mostly at the end, when the consequences of her actions throughout the book become clear.  Parris too grows to some extent.  

Sinclair is pretty interesting as a character, though he’s not very likeable.  I found his experiments cool, but his willingness to manipulate people to get his way became disturbing as the book wore on.

Most of the action in the book was predictable but there were some interesting twists, mainly concerning the creatures encountered and revolving around the ending of the book.

The ending came rather suddenly and wrapped things up a little too neatly.  A number of people mastered powers too quickly to be believable.  I did, however, appreciate that there was no cliffhanger leading to the next book in the trilogy.

***SPOILERS***

Just to clarify my comments about the ending for those who have read the book, I understood that Catherine could - under duress - figure out that she has powers due to the influx of quintessence in her, but I object to her mastering it in 5 minutes.  The explanation behind it seemed to boil down to the idea that humans master all sorts of skills and never have to consciously think about them again.  But many (most?) of those skills have to be learned in infancy/childhood.  And if you suddenly acquire an ability in adulthood that you lacked before, you have to learn how to do it (even if it’s a skill you had and lost for a period of time, like walking again after breaking a leg).  Even more egregious is Parris’ ability to watch Sinclair perform the resurrection ceremony once and be able to perfectly modify it to give others the same quintessence powers Catherine got.  Sinclair practiced on animals, not enough to truly understand what he was doing, but even he failed on his first try on a human.  But Parris manages to get it right 5 times in a row with no prior experience at all.

Stranger Than Fiction: Platonic Solids

A column dedicated to pointing out interesting tidbits of history, some of which would be cool to see in a fantasy novel or two.

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One of the things I've been studying this past year is the History of Science: Antiquity to 1700 course by Great Courses.  It's amazing how much ancient peoples discovered about the world, and how many ancient practices we still adhere to, even if we don't realize it.  For example the Babylonians chose a mathematical base of 60 for their calculations, which is where we get 60 seconds in a minute.

One of the most fascinating lectures was on Plato.  I avoided the medieval philosophy courses in university because I thought they'd be dry and boring.  Boy was I wrong.  (And yes, I understand Plato isn't a Medieval philosopher, but I suspect you can't study Medieval philosophy without studying the Greek philosophers, as they formed the basis of later works).  

What really caught my interest was Plato's 4 Element Theory.  I've heard variations on this (medieval medicine was based on the 4 humours that draw heavily on this), but never the full theory with a real understanding of it.

Basically Plato believed that there were 4 elements that made up the world and everything on it, when combined.  He also believed that each element had a shape that defined its role.

This is a chart about the elements I made up using information I got from the fascinating Alchemy of Paint: Art, Science and Secrets From the Middle Ages by Spike Bucklow.  If you want to get a decent understanding of Alchemy and the complexity of medieval thought, read that book.

ELEMENT	MODE	GEOMETRY	SIDES	QUALITIES	SHAPE	WEIGHT
FIRE	CONSUMING	TETRAHEDRAL	4	HOT DRY	SHARP MOBILE	SUBTLE
AIR	GASEOUS	OCTAHEDRAL	8	HOT WET	BLUNT MOBILE	SUBTLE
WATER	LIQUID	ICOSAHEDRAL	20	COLD WET	BLUNT MOBILE	DENSE
EARTH	SOLID	CUBIC	6	COLD DRY	BLUNT IMMOBILE	DENSE

The first thing that occurred to me when I thought about the different shapes was that they seemed familiar...

That's right, D&D dice.  Though, of course, there are a few more dice in the game than Platonic solids.

Now, I like to show how these stranger than fiction posts can be useful in world-building when it comes to making up fantasy worlds.  First, it's good to remember that your people may not be as 'primitive' as you think.  Nor are modern ways of thinking necessarily the best way to deal with the past when it comes to how your people relate to the world around them.

Of course, the easiest way to use the Platonic Solids is to do what Peter V. Brett did in his Demon Cycle books, use them (ok, use D&D dice) as augury bones.

And in case you think that's the artist's interpretation, here's an illustration from his website of what the bones the priestesses cast look like:

While Plato had 4 elements in mind, others felt that 4 was one short.  The human hand has 5 fingers. From a mathematical standpoint, 5 is the hypotenuse of a triangle (when you take the first plane number (3) and the first solid number (4) as the lengths of 2 sides).  Five is the number of regular solids.  there were 5 visible planets (sun, moon, mercury, venus and mars - the Greek word 'planet' means 'wanderer') and the belief was that the macrocosm was analogous to the microcosm.  Therefore, shouldn't there be 5 elements?  Thus came the quest for quintessence, the 5th Element (a 12 sided shape - in the centre of the elements), the one meant to show the attributes of heaven, the spiritual, the perfect, the pure. (This information comes from another interesting read, Medieval Number Symbolism by Vincent Foster Hopper, pp 35-36.)

As a side note, since it kind of deals with the D&D dice up above and I think it's cool, Lou Anders pointed out this post about the oldest 20 sided die in the world.  Carved sometime during the 2nd to 4th centuries  A.D., this die from the Ptolemaic era of Egypt has both Greek and Coptic letters on it.  It's currently housed at the Met.